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polished lobe.
    Tall Hilda took my hand in hers and kissed
the palm, and closed that mark inside my fist.
     
    She lived alone and thickened in that town,
    refusing company for weeks on end.
    We left food at her door; she took it in;
    her dull lamp deepened as the night wore on.
    I went to her when everything was wrong.
    We sat all evening talking children, men.
    She laughed at me, and said it was my ruin.
    My giving till I dropped.
Live blood let down the drain.
     
    I never let her know how those words cut
    me serious—her questioning my life. One night
    a slow thing came, provoked by weariness,
    to cram itself up every slackened nerve;
    as if my body were a whining hive
    and each cell groaning with a sweet, thick lead—
    I turned and struck at Otto in our bed;
    all night, all night the poison, till I swarmed
    back empty to his cold
and dreaming arms.

Here Is a Good Word for Step-and-a-Half Waleski
    At first we all wondered what county or town
    she had come from. Quite soon it was clear to us all
    that was better unquestioned, and better unknown.
    Who wanted to hear what had happened or failed
    to occur. Why the dry wood had not taken fire.
    Much less, why the dogs were unspeakably disturbed
     
    when she ground the cold cinders that littered our walk
    with her run-to-ground heels. That Waleski approached
    with a swiftness uncommon for one of her age.
    Even spiders spun clear of her lengthening shadow.
    Her headlong occurrence unnerved even Otto
    who wrapped up the pork rinds like they were glass trinkets
    and saluted her passage with a good stiff drink.
     
    But mine is a good word for Step-and-a-Half Waleski.
    Scavenger, bone picker, lived off our alleys
    when all we threw out were the deadliest scrapings
    from licked-over pots. And even that hurt.
    And for whatever one of us laughed in her face,
    at least two prayed in secret, went home half afraid
    of that mirror, what possible leavings they’d find there.
     
    But mine is a good word, and even that hurts.
    A rhyme-and-a-half for a woman of parts,
    because someone must pare the fruit soft to the core
    into slivers, must wrap the dead bones in her skirts
    and lay these things out on her table, and fit
    each oddment to each to resemble a life.

Portrait of the Town Leonard
    I thought I saw him look my way and crossed
    my breast before I could contain myself.
    Beneath those glasses, thick as lead-barred windows,
    his eyes ran through his head, the double barrels
    of an old gun, sick on its load, the trigger held
    in place by one thin metal bow.
     
    Going toward the Catholic church, whose twin
    white dunce caps speared the clouds for offerings,
    we had to pass him on the poured stone bridge.
    For nickels we could act as though we’d not
    been offered stories. How these all turned out
    we knew, each one, just how the river eats
    within its course the line of reasoning.
     
    He went, each morning, to the first confession.
    The sulking curtains bit their lips behind him.
    Still those in closer pews could hear the sweet
    and limber sins he’d made up on the spot.
    I saw a few consider, and take note—
    procedural. They’d try them out at home.
     
    And once, a windless August, when the sun
    released its weight and all the crops were burned,
    he kept watch as the river thickened. Land
    grew visibly and reeked to either side,
    till windowed hulks, forgotten death cars reared
    where dark fish leapt, and gaped, and snatched the air.

Leonard Commits Redeeming Adulteries with All the Women in Town
    When I take off my glasses, these eyes are dark magnets
    that draw the world into my reach.
    First the needles, as I walk the quiet streets,
    work their way from the cushions of dust.
    The nails in the rafters twist laboriously out
    and the oven doors drop
    an inch open.
    The sleep smell of yesterday’s baking
    rises in the mouth.
    A good thing.
     
    The street lamps wink off just at dawn,
    still they bend their stiff necks like geese drinking.
    My vision is drinking in the